


The Fell Star Rises

by Raikishi



Series: The Fell Star Consumes [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Creature Fic, Dragon My Unit | Byleth, Established Relationship, F/M, Human/Monster Romance, Interspecies Relationship(s), Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25383601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raikishi/pseuds/Raikishi
Summary: Claude has always loved the stars, made a point to memorize their names as a child and their paths as a teenager. Could easily pick them out in any sky, be it Faerghus or Empire. Fodlan or Almyra. Could easily mark their paths with his fingers.Byleth knows them in different ways.“Seiros is an ass,” she says of Sirius.Claudeth Day 1: Stars
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Series: The Fell Star Consumes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1777048
Comments: 10
Kudos: 58





	The Fell Star Rises

Claude has always loved the stars, made a point to memorize their names as a child and their paths as a teenager. Could easily pick them out in any sky, be it Faerghus or Empire. Fodlan or Almyra. Could easily mark their paths with his fingers. 

Byleth knows them in different ways.

“Seiros is an ass,” she says of Sirius, her nose pressed against the hollow of his throat, her hand slipping beneath his shirt front to hold a pectoral, “Thinks she knows more than anyone because she shines so bright and the humans love to stroke her ego.”

“Aw, but she’s my favorite,” Claude says and then laughs when she tweaks his nipple roughly. Her teeth nip his shoulder in reprimand. Claude shimmies, sliding down so his head falls into the crook of her neck and licks a line along her jaw as she bites at his throat, “After you of course.”

Her scales flush over her cheeks as she smiles at him with deep-trenched approval, her hand hiking up his shirt further, “Better.”

She pushes him forward so he leans against the windowsill and he all but purrs as she works a trail of bites down his back, already anticipating the ache of her marks the next day. 

“What about Mirzam?” he asks, holding his hands out parallel to mark a corner of the sky.

“A brat,” Byleth pronounces after a long moment spent sucking a mark between his shoulder blades. He feels her shift behind him. She leans over his back, just enough to glimpse up at the sky as if she could look the stars in the face, “Who thinks too highly of themself.”

“And Muli –“

Byleth tugs him back and slants her mouth over his, her tongue sweeping his mouth as one clawed hand sinks into his hair, cradling the base of his head as she holds him close for her exploration. A deep kiss he feels down to his toes, fire roaring in his blood as he arches into her.  Her tongue flicks over his lip, slow and teasing, as she pulls away, her eyes dark as she tugs his shirt from him.

“I don’t want to talk about them,” she declares, “It’s decidedly unerotic.”

He laughs at that and then shivers at the touch of Faerghus chill at his back, crowding into her chest. He licks at the corner of her mouth in askance and she smiles at him indulgently. He spies embers behind her teeth as she summons fire for him, the heat stirring from the center of her chest and lighting her throat and mouth. He shudders, his entire body going warm as she breathes a spiced heat over his skin. 

“Mmm,” he hums, stretching out against her like a cat, arranging himself artfully just to see the blaze of desire in her eyes. 

He licks into her mouth, humming as she rolls back the flames, her hands firm but oh so careful against his back and neck. The fire comes back when he pulls away, a heat like coals raking over his chest as she tracks a little path of bites down his chest, warming him through. He goes loose in her arms, relishing in her careful adoration of him. 

She tilts him over the windowsill again, going for his pants next and he puffs out a laughing breath against the starry night as he tilts his head upwards. Above him, the constellations twinkle at him as if trying to communicate. To either laugh at his daring for seducing a sister from beneath them or reprimand him for the sin.

“I still want to know,” he says, hitching his hips on a gasp as Byleth sucks a mark into his belly. 

Her claws track down his spine in a delicious run that makes him shiver. Clearly intent on distracting him.

“Byleth,” he huffs, holding a hand over his mouth as she noses at the juncture of his hips, a moan battering the back of his throat as she drags her tongue along the cut of his hips. 

His body whines at him to forget his questions. To leave the mystery alone and let her toy with him until thought became a distant thing. His mouth goes dry at the notion, all too familiar with long nights ending in him too deeply sated to remember his own name.

“Do you miss them?” he blurts out when she bites at his hip.

The very crux of his curiosity.

He feels Byleth still against him, her claws paused on the base of his spine as her teeth slip away from him. He can feel her weighing her choices, running over the possibility of distracting him against the likelihood of him bringing up the question again. He hides a victorious grin when she pulls him back in.

“Not particularly,” she says, drawing him into the comfort of her arms, wrapping around him as his wyvern had done so many years ago when he would sneak out to the rooftops to see the stars closer. She looks to the skies and her gaze is distant, “We are not family if that’s what you think. And the stars are farther apart than you'd think. We rarely see one another. I prefer it that way.” 

She looks to Sirius and an old emotion Claude cannot decipher draws over her face, “Seiros created me, you know.”

That was new. He feels her stiffen beneath him and understands she did not mean to speak the words.

“I won’t push if you don’t want to tell me,” he says gently and she huffs a laugh at that.

They both understand the lie, kind though it tries to be. They both know he is incapable of leaving questions unanswered and a mystery unsolved. He huddles closer again her, pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat as he takes her hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the knuckles in slow circles.

“I was human once,” she says, her voice sounding far away, losing herself in the memories, “I had a mother who died in childbirth. A knighted father who turned his back on kingdom and king after her death. We left a kingdom now long dead to live as hired swords.”

A small smile touches her mouth as she thinks on him, “He was a good man.”

Claude lays them both on the ground, twining their legs together in an attempt to offer comfort. He thinks of his own father. 

_“I have never regretted your birth,” the king tells Khalid as he hands him the reins of a white wyvern, “And should the gods take me today, I will go with pride in my heart that I had a child such as you.”_

_He bows his head over their clasped hands, a sad smile on his face, expression burning over with words he cannot say._

Byleth kisses his knuckles, not quite a smile on her face as she leans into him. 

“It was an easy life.”

“The best kind,” Claude assures her, thinking of his own childhood, and she hums a little as she looks over their twined hands.

“It was. Until the stars went out. We were camping in a mountain range that now exists as a valley when the first Fell Star – Sothis – died. She fell to earth burning and took many with her. I remember my father’s death but not mine. Can still smell the fire burning through his back as he shielded me.”

Her eyes are dry, expression painfully stoic as she looks to the ceiling but Claude kisses the corner as if wiping tears and presses his forehead to her in silent comfort. Her lashes dip against his chin, a little shiver raking her body as she curls into him. After a long moment, she speaks again.

"I don't remember pain," she assures him, "Only grief that I would see my father leave before me. I suppose Seiros felt much the same. When I next awoke, she was there.  Her mother’s core in my chest.”

Her chest rises and falls and then splits in the center, the mist of darkness within her spiraling with red and blue, twinkling with devoured constellations and old planets. Byleth touches a hand to the center absently, drawing through the gape.

“Perhaps my father is too,” she says but the tone in which she says it indicates her disbelief. She dredges up something shining from her chest, something burning so hot Claude cannot look at it directly and struggles not to shift away. Seeing his discomfort, she drops it away. The darkness sputters and closes around it, devouring, “I was hungry those first years and Seiros urged me to consume. To feed her mother’s gift planted in my chest. She brought me to the skies and I spent centuries devouring anything that drew too close. Any star that came near...”

Sparks sputter from her chest. The final gasp of old constellations long forgotten. 

"Every time I consumed, their power made me larger. Their magic bent my body around an inhumane core until I grew as strong as any full born star."

Her wings split the room, powerful claws bracketing the ground around his head as she looms over him like a predator. 

“Less human,” she says and her voice shudders into a growling click as she cocks her head at him. As if she could intimidate him still. As if he had not seen down to the very core of her and loved her regardless.  


“Did she expect a human to grow like that?” Claude asks, arching up to kiss the rough scale of her jaw, holding her gaze and refusing to look away, “Or did she mean for Sothis to rise from you?”

Byleth’s mouth twitches into a small smile as she allows him to plant a kiss against the awkward cut of an inhumane mouth, her wings shifting to cradle him like a treasure. 

Her gaze drifts behind him, ablaze with something like a challenge as she looks to the skies. He brushes a thumb to the corner of her lip, aching to soothe away the tension, knowing her answer already. Understands he had not been the only one to search for freedom that night on the borders.  


“She waits still.”

**Author's Note:**

> even when there is no church, fuck the church


End file.
